


Special Collections

by Papook



Series: Jocasta Jones and the Librarian Clones [1]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, Humor, LIIL Squad, Star Wars AU - Soft Wars
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-02
Updated: 2020-10-13
Packaged: 2021-03-07 17:15:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,518
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26771275
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Papook/pseuds/Papook
Summary: TheNegotiatorgets an unexpected comm from an unusual place.Enter LIIL Squad, stage right.
Relationships: CC-2224 | Cody & Obi-Wan Kenobi
Series: Jocasta Jones and the Librarian Clones [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1951591
Comments: 120
Kudos: 394
Collections: Open Source Soft Wars





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Primarybufferpanel (ArwenLune)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArwenLune/gifts).



> This fic is dedicated to Primarybufferpanel, who provided the inspiration for the whole series and gave this fic a marvelous and much needed fine-tuning. Thanks also go to the hooligans in the Discord server for enthusiastic encouragement and enabling. Oya!

"This is LIIL Squad, requesting pickup."

 _Who the kark is LIIL Squad,_ Cody thought, glaring murderously at the comm, _and what the kark are they doing on karking Korriban?_

*****

"Gentlemen," General Kenobi said neutrally as they watched the squad strolling off the lartie. He wasn't normally so reserved with his troops, but both he and Cody were somewhat suspicious of the circumstances surrounding this group. They had had to divert several hours out of their way for this, and the call had woken them both out of a rare sound sleep. 

Every member of the squad was obnoxiously cheerful, despite the late hour and the planet they had been retrieved from. One trooper had lost all the armor plates from his right arm; the whole squad was uniformly dusty and mildly scorched, but looked otherwise unharmed. 

"General!" They saluted. No facial tattoos, no facial hair, regulation haircuts. The only thing to differentiate them was the light blue armor paint and the single earring each of them wore. "Thanks for the pickup, sirs!"

"Did you crash?" Cody couldn't imagine anyone landing on Korriban on _purpose._

"Oh no, we airdropped in," the trooper wearing a spiral earring said with terrifying nonchalance. "The last time we came here one of the tombs ate our ship-” the lartie pilot choked and tripped off the ramp, ‘-and we didn't want to waste another." 

What. Who just airdrops a squad on a _Sith planet?_

He bet it was Vos.

"And you were on Korriban _because_ …?"

The trooper missing part of his armor grinned. "Research trip! Needed a break from all the galactic history papers and level 3 diplomacy and debate projects." 

Not Vos then? Cody couldn’t imagine _Quinlan Vos_ and _history papers_ could exist in the same quadrant without destroying the spacetime continuum, much less that he would lead a squad anywhere near one.

"Yeah, if I had to go through the newsflimsi archive _one more time_ for Rancisis I was gonna snap and shoot someone. Nice to get away and let off some steam." That trooper had a square earring and a rucksack slung over his shoulder.

"Also we're trying to avoid the healers getting ready for the next round of certification exams," a fourth—triangle earring—added with a shudder.

Pained faces and quiet 'kot's rippled through the squad as they nodded.

"How is that worse than karking Korriban?!" a gawking shiny blurted. The vicious efficiency of Ghost’s gossip mill had guaranteed an excess of troopers loitering around the hangar bay trying to look busy while jockeying for prime observation spots. A passing sergeant thumped the uppity shiny, though he was doing a poor job of concealing his own interest in the answer.

The whole squad shot him identical looks dripping with judgement. "Medics. _Frazzled_ medics. Cramming for exams full of _horrifying facts_ . Who don't respond to things like _stop_ and _please leave_ and _get out,_ " Spiral Earring said pointedly.

"You can at least shoot the creepy things on Korriban," the last trooper muttered. "Can't shoot the healers even if they won't stop talking about the production rate of Hutt slime glands. I know more about Jabba's _shebs_ than any sentient should."

Where were these troopers even _assigned?_

The General cleared his throat, redirecting the conversation. "May I ask what you were...researching?"

"Booby traps," Missing Armor said primly.

“Rescuing _di'kut'ika_ from booby traps,” said Hutt Butt Expert. 

“Holocrons,” Square Earring said, and held up his bag. 

Stillness rippled through the hangar, and the General’s eyes narrowed.

“And who exactly are you serving under?” he asked pleasantly, with an edge of impending retribution. Cody was also _very interested_ to know what maniac had sent a single five man squad of brothers to Korriban to collect Sith holocrons _alone,_ regardless of the fact that they seemed unfazed by it.

Five pairs of eyes blinked guilelessly back at him. “General Nu. She was going to come with us but she got a cold from the last creche day so we convinced her to stay home.”

_What._

“I see.” The General nodded. Cody _did not see_ , thank you very much. “I hope you are enjoying the Temple Archives.”

The men nodded with slightly unsettling enthusiasm. “We’ve learned _so many_ fun things!” Missing Armor said brightly, nearly bouncing on his toes.

“And only half of them make other things go _boom_ ,” Spiral Earring murmured with a slight smirk.

“Indeed. Commander,” the General said, turning to face Cody. “Please see to it that LIIL Squad has appropriate accommodations for the duration of their time with us. And,” he added, lowering his voice, “under _no_ circumstances are these men _ever_ allowed to interact with Torrent Company.”

“Sir?” 

The General raised a brow. “Torrent’s propensity for mayhem plus access to the largest library in the galaxy?"

Cody blanched.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> LIIL Squad on the loose!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ETA: I realized that I had A) used the wrong name for a character and B) used two without proper credit, shame on me. Bore and Spite are both creations of [Project0506](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Project0506/pseuds/Project0506) and appear in the [Soft Wars](https://archiveofourown.org/series/1683775) series, which I am using as the setting for this fic and which you should go read immediately.

Waxer hadn't been in the hangar bay the night before when the mysterious LIIL Squad arrived. He had been asleep like a _normal person_ instead of gawking like a freshly decanted tubie, unlike _some_ he could name. But he had heard plenty about the newcomers, regardless. Seemed like that was all anyone could talk about when he woke up. Tales had been wildly conflicting; the only common thread was that the squad was "absolutely kriffing insane." Waxer's professional pride had been a little insulted. Ghost Company was usually better at intel gathering than this.

Looked like it was his lucky day, though. The Commander had asked him to personally show the new kids around. 

He just...couldn’t _find_ the new kids anymore. He'd met them at the door to the nearest mess, learned their names, told them to get food, and gone to check on a few urgent things while they ate, and by the time he got back to the mess to collect them for a tour they'd all disappeared.

Boil could never find out about this.

*****

“Stupid, worthless piece of junk,” Sailor muttered. Second shift was nearly finished and he _still_ hadn't made any progress on his repair task list. He was going to be stuck in the maintenance tunnels _forever_ _._ “Five thousand pages of maintenance specs and not a single useful thing.”

“That’s probably because your search terms are crap,” someone said briskly. An unfamiliar trooper slipped the datapad out of his hands and glanced at him. “What were you looking for?”

“Uh…the pressure relief valve on the tertiary reactor cooling system,” Sailor said dumbly.

“Mmhmm.” The stranger's fingers flew over the screen. “Did you want the primary or secondary valve?”

“Whichever has the actuator, I think.” 

His rescuer—no face tattoos, one square earring, light blue armor paint—highlighted something on the screen and handed it back. “Don’t add punctuation next time, it confuses the search engine.”

“Oh. Thanks.” Sailor blinked down at the pad and the exact answer he’d spent the last hour looking for. “Who are you?”

“Sergeant Atin, LIIL Squad.”

*****

"Oh hey, new guy!" Trapper did a quick skip-hop to fall into step with the LIIL squad trooper leaving the shuttle hangar. "You're from the squad we picked up! What's your name?"

The trooper gave him a sidelong glance. Light glinted off the triangular stud in his ear. "Dital."

"Hi, I’m Trapper. I'm friends with the pilot who picked you up, he said that a tomb ate your ship? I don't think that's possible, but whatever, people say that planet is haunted, so-"

"It is."

Trapper jerked to a halt. "No way."

“Yes."

"It's haunted? For real?"

"By Sith ghosts."

Trapper narrowed his eyes. "Banthashit."

Dital just flashed an enigmatic smile and walked away.

Trapper still didn't think ghosts were real.

Mostly.

_Haar'chak._

  
  


*****

Router sighed in disgust and tossed his data pad onto a crate. The clatter echoed through the cavernous storage bay. "Inventory system is karked again. I _just_ logged all the rations we picked up last week and it decided to recategorize them as munitions."

Groans rang across the room. Some random shiny stuck his head through the open door with a frown. "What system is karked?"

"Supply inventory database," Router said dully. "Bane of our collective existence."

"Lemme see." Random shiny—wait, not actually a shiny, he had blue armor paint and a spiral earring—snatched up the pad and began scrolling, his frown growing more pronounced the longer he looked at it.

"This offends me on a spiritual level," he declared after a few moments. "I am _wounded_ by its very existence."

"You're telling me," Router muttered.

"Who wrote this, Myrf? This is a disgrace." Not-shiny rummaged in his hip storage for a data crystal that he slotted into the pad. He typed furiously for a minute, then ejected the crystal and tossed the pad back to Router. 

"Crate number goes here, contents goes here, source or place of origin goes here. Any pertinent details go in this field, click here and you can either take a flatpic or do a 3D scan. If you need to add a field or descriptor, hit that button."

Router stared dumbly at the sleek, beautiful, user-friendly database interface. He ran reverent fingers over the screen, then stumbled to the nearest ration crate and entered it into the inventory.

It worked like a dream. Thirty seconds, five clicks, and he had one properly inventoried crate of rations that _stayed_ rations and didn't turn into munitions or ammo or toxic waste.

_"How the kriff did you make it stop sucking?"_ Router demanded. Heads popped up between crates throughout the storage bay.

Not-shiny crossed his arms smugly. "I'm not called Curator for nothing."

Files scrabbled over a stack of boxes like a feral lizard-monkey. "Can you do it again?" he asked urgently. 

Curator grinned. "Give me your pads."

*****

Rogue tapped his stylus on the datapad. “What’s the name of the ceremonial headpiece worn by the female natives of the third moon of Paghparagh?” he called out to the rest of the troopers scattered around the rec room.

Codes groaned and rolled his eyes. “How should I know? I’ve never even _heard_ of that planet–”

“Bali tsaghkum.”

“Huh?” Rogue startled and looked up at the trooper who’d just wandered in.

“The ceremonial headpiece. It’s called a bali tsaghkum. The one the males wear is called a bali lolik.” 

“Huh.” _Might as well_ , Rogue thought, and entered it into the pad. “Hey, that worked! How the kriff do you know that?”

“Had to reshelve the datapads for the Advanced Cultural Negotiations class last week,” the new guy (round earring, blue paint, missing some armor) said absently. “Is Mess 5 around here?”

“Mess 5 is on the other side of the ship."

Round Earring nodded and turned back to the door.

“Hey wait! What’s your name?”

“Buttons,” Round Earring called without stopping.

“Wait come back! I need you on my quiz bowl team!”

*****

"Bore for the last time I am _fine!"_

"I'll be the judge of that, sir, _after_ I complete your physical," Bore growled, shoving his _di’kut’la_ general into the medbay. "We can either do this the easy way or I can pull rank and–"

"General Kenobi!"

The General stiffened in front of him. Bore stopped pushing, torn between taking advantage of Kenobi's momentary distraction and not wanting to undermine the General's authority in front of a stranger.

One of the men they had picked up from Korriban—Bore thought it was the one who mentioned Jabba—was loitering in his medbay chatting with Spite over an open field med kit.

"Good morning, Sergeant…?" Kenobi trailed off courteously, immediately flipping the switch from cranky tooka to suave Negotiator.

"Sergeant Shepherd, sir." The trooper saluted, light flashing off the three parallel lines of his earring.

"At ease, Shepherd. I'm sorry I didn't catch your name when you came on board last night. Were you injured?"

"No sir, just getting a second opinion on some things in my kit. I have the standard burn cream but I was wondering if there was something that would work better for the next time Buttons puts his hand in acid."

The _'next time'?_ Was that a common occurrence?

"I'm sure Bore here would be happy to help–" 

Bore opened his mouth to say _no he really would not–_

"Oh no, sir, I couldn't take him away from his essential duties like that. Besides," Shepherd's eyes glinted, though his smile was perfectly innocent, "Crechemaster M'Buna will be so glad to hear how well you're doing under his care. She worries about you, sir."

"Ah, well, I–" Kenobi stammered, flustered for the first time in Bore's experience.

"Enjoy your exam, General," Shepherd said, mild as bantha milk. Bore seized the opportunity as well as his General and made a beeline for the private exam room. As he turned to close the door behind his prey, he flicked a message at Spite. _Get me his comm code!_

*****

After nearly five hours of searching, Waxer finally found his wayward charges huddled around a table in Mess 5. He hurried towards them before they could slip away, catching snatches of their conversation as he drew near.

“–that won’t work, we need to flank _left –”_

“Are you sure we can’t use nets?”

“Look if they get dug in there, we’ll need explosives to get them out and we can’t _afford_ that–”

“If we head them off here–”

“What planet is under attack?” Waxer demanded as he got to the table. It sounded like they were planning for a full scale assault, but he hadn’t heard any new rumors about upcoming campaigns…

LIIL Squad looked up from their model battlefield of used silverware and empty spice packets. “Planet? Who's attacking a planet?” Buttons said in confusion.

Waxer felt suddenly wrong-footed. “I mean—it sounded like you were prepping for an assault.”

“Well, yes, but it’s because the initiate clans are coming to visit on Taungsday,” Shepherd said.

“Aren’t you a, a strike team or something?” Waxer asked. He was beginning to get the feeling they were having two completely different conversations.

“No?” They glanced at each other like they couldn’t understand his bafflement.

“But–” he floundered. “Didn’t we pick you up from some haunted planet? I thought you were some badass special ops team!”

"What?" Curator huffed, apparently affronted by the very idea. "We’re not SpecOps, we're _librarians."_


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> LIIL Squad returns to their natural habitat.

Obi-Wan glanced at the troopers sitting across from him in the transport. They were on their way back to the Temple—himself to a Council meeting, and LIIL Squad to return to the Archives and their general with the holocrons they had taken from Korriban. They were, to a man, reading on palm-sized datapads they had pulled from their hip storage the moment the transport left the _Negotiator._ Obi-Wan was envious. He couldn’t read when entering atmo; it was a sure way to make himself nauseous.

He still wasn't sure what to think of the squad. They had appeared out of the blue and created an uproar throughout his entire command, but seemed remarkably unphased by it. He wouldn't say they were _unaware_ of the chaos they created—he wasn't likely to forget Shepherd's look when mentioning his old Crechemaster—but LIIL Squad seemed to think it was perfectly ordinary. When he had heard, in those frantic weeks at the start of the war, that Shaak Ti was working to get some of the clones that the Kaminoans found “unsound” reassigned to the Temple, he had supposed that the clones would be...well, certainly not LIIL Squad. 

He wondered what waves they had been making in the Temple. 

Obi-Wan had not, over the course of both his and Anakin's apprenticeship, been much in contact with Madame Nu. The majority of his apprenticeship had been spent in the field, far from the Temple, and even when he and his master had been in residence they rarely ventured to the Archives. The very few times they had, Qui-Gon had gone to great lengths to avoid interacting with Madame Nu, though Obi-Wan had never found out the precise reasons for that avoidance. As for his own padawan—Anakin was such a kinesthetic learner that any forays to the stillness of the Archives were viewed much more like punishment than learning opportunities. 

In fact, the sum of his interaction with Madame Nu for nearly two decades was the attempt to track down Kamino that had led to the discovery of the clones. Thus he had assumed, given his limited experience with her, that she was a fierce proponent of order and serenity, especially in her dominion, and woe betide anyone who broke the sanctity of her hallowed halls. Her reputation was that of a stern woman, very exacting, who had little patience for fools. 

He had not considered that there might be more facets to her until the first Council meeting when Plo Koon had casually said, "Jocasta's gone tomb raiding again, she said she'd be back on Centaxday," and Mace had buried his head in his hands and sighed so hard it ruffled his robe. 

“Jocasta Nu,” Mace had declared, “is a _menace_.” 

It appeared that her troopers were following in her footsteps with enthusiasm.

They had certainly thrown the 212th into a tizzy, far beyond just the normal upset generated by new faces appearing on the _Negotiator_. The war was strangely isolating; relentless battles on many fronts meant that there were few opportunities for the men to interact with people outside of their divisions, and outsiders were thus more than ordinarily exciting, but LIIL Squad had generated a buzz far beyond even that inflated norm. Judging by the rumors, Bore was planning on proposing to Shepherd at the earliest opportunity, the entire logistics division had erected a shrine to Curator, and there were a not insignificant number of squads debating how to beg, bribe, or steal part or all of LIIL Squad to a permanent posting within the 212th.

When Obi-Wan had asked Waxer for his impressions, since Waxer had been tasked with showing LIIL Squad around the ship, Waxer had paused, made a complicated, indecipherable face, and thrown up his hands in resigned defeat. "I don't even kriffing know, sir," he had admitted. "Librarians are a whole different breed."

Which, Obi-Wan felt, was a very astute observation.

The transport approached the Temple and they all stood in preparation for disembarking. LIIL Squad settled into readiness; a sense of expectation suffused the air around them. It was not the same battle readiness that Obi-Wan felt from Ghost Company before an engagement, but it felt like a close cousin. It piqued his curiosity. How did Madame Nu engage with the men under her command? Their behavior indicated that they admired her and had absorbed her teachings eagerly, but that shed no light on how they _interacted_ with her. 

Would they have the same consummate professionalism as Mace and Lightning? The respectful give and take of Gree and Luminara? The comradery he felt with his own Ghosts? He couldn’t _quite_ imagine they would indulge in the gleeful squabbling common to Anakin and Torrent; Madame Nu seemed too severe for that, no matter her propensity for raiding Sith tombs at the drop of a hat. He wondered, but he doubted he would get to see them interact. He was to report to the Council immediately, while Madame Nu was surely ensconced in the Archives. It was a bit disappointing. 

_Or maybe not._ Madame Nu was waiting on the landing pad, robes billowing in the backwash from the thrusters as the shuttle settled down.

LIIL Squad squared their shoulders and marched off the transport towards her as soon as the doors opened. They lined up in a row in front of her, in perfect step and at perfect attention. Obi-Wan followed closely behind, attempting to be circumspect in his curiosity. 

"Gentlemen," she said gravely.

"Madame," they returned, in perfect unison, and bowed as one.

Atin stepped forward, and with great ceremony, produced a holocron. He flourished it like a majordomo presenting an expensive bottle of wine at an exclusive restaurant for Madame Nu’s inspection. “For you, milady,” he said with another shallow bow. "I retrieved it from the wine cellar myself."

She folded her hands into her sleeves and gave a regal nod. “An excellent choice, good sir.”

The tableau held for a long moment. Then her lips twitched, Buttons choked on a stifled giggle, and all six of them dissolved into laughter. The cool professionalism LIIL Squad had practically _oozed_ aboard the _Negotiator_ vanished. Curator punched Buttons’ unarmored shoulder, Dital pounced on Shepherd and either wrestled something out of his hand or had a quietly vicious three-second slap fight, and Atin stepped forward to offer Madame Nu his arm with an overly complicated and archaic Alderaanian salute.

"How did it go?" Obi-Wan heard Madame Nu ask as they walked away in a mirthful herd, jostling each other like crechelings and trailing happiness in their wake.

"Well, Buttons did more 'research' on booby traps–"

"He stuck his arm in acid!"

"It was only my vambrace!"

"–which means he's the shiny for the _sixth week in a row_ –"

_Oh._ Obi-Wan found himself smiling.

It seemed that Plo Koon and Jocasta Nu had more in common than he thought. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone who encouraged this idea into reality. It has been enormous fun to get this started, and I'm looking forward to writing the further adventures of LIIL Squad. Oya!


End file.
